The Guardian Climate Change

Experts say the new figures dispel the notion that the country is protected from extreme temperatures and raise fears for local marine life

New Zealand’s sea temperatures have hit record highs, outstripping global averages threefold in one region, and prompting alarm over the health of the country’s marine life and ecosystems.

New data from Stats NZ shows since 1982, oceanic sea-surface temperatures have increased on average between 0.16 – 0.26C a decade, and between 0.19–0.34C a decade, in coastal waters.

‘Mission control centre’ to work with energy companies and regulators towards goal of clean and cheaper power by 2030

Labour has appointed one of the country’s foremost climate experts to lead a “mission control centre” on clean energy.

Chris Stark, the former head of the UK’s climate watchdog, will head a Covid vaccine-style taskforce aimed at delivering clean and cheaper power by 2030.

The Oklahoman brought a snowball to the Senate floor in 2015 to prove humans couldn’t change the climate

Republican former senator James Inhofe, a climate denier who once brought a snowball to the chamber floor in a stunt attempting to disprove global warming, died on Tuesday at the age of 89.

Inhofe resigned as senator for Oklahoma in January 2023, suffering long-term effects of Covid-19. Elected in 1994, his time as the state’s longest-serving senator was notable for his ultra-conservative positions on numerous issues, including calling the climate emergency “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people”.

From climate crisis being a crime story to presenting basic weather news in the context of climate change, here are some lessons from journalists

Mark Hertsgaard and Kyle Pope of Covering Climate Now (CCNow) hail the winners of their organization’s annual global climate journalism awards, and here describe some lessons they have taken from the more than 1,250 entries.

Mark Hertsgaard is executive director and co-founder of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration committed to more and better coverage of the climate story, and the Nation magazine’s environment correspondent

Kyle Pope is executive director of strategic initiatives and co-founder of Covering Climate Now, and a former editor and publisher of the Columbia Journalism Review

Key Largo tree cactus no longer growing naturally in US thanks to salt water inundation and soil depletion

Scientists in Florida have recorded what they say is the first local extinction of a species caused by sea-level rise.

The climate emergency has killed off the Key Largo tree cactus growing naturally in the US through salt water inundation and soil depletion from hurricanes, according to researchers from the Florida Museum of Natural History, and Miami’s Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden.

Warning after intensification of storm aided by unusually hot ocean waters in much of Beryl’s path

Hurricane Beryl, which slammed into Texas on Monday after wreaking havoc in the Caribbean, was supercharged by “absolutely crazy” ocean temperatures that are likely to fuel further violent storms in the coming months, scientists have warned.

Beryl left more than 2m people without power after making landfall near Houston as a category one storm, after having rampaged through the Caribbean as a category 5 hurricane, with wind speeds reaching 165mph, killing 11 people.

Report says member states poured $1.34tn into their militaries last year – an increase of $126bn from 2022

As leaders from member countries gather to mark the 75th anniversary of Nato in Washington DC, researchers are warning that their military budgets are eroding the climate, producing an estimated 233m metric tonnes of greenhouse gas, more planet-heating pollution than some entire countries.

“Our research shows that military spending increases greenhouse gas emissions, diverts critical finance from climate action, and consolidates an arms trade that fuels instability during climate breakdown,” says a new report from three international research and advocacy groups, the UK’s Transnational Institute and Tipping Point North South, and the Netherlands’ Stop Wapenhandel.

Blackened trees, dead animals and scorched earth – early wildfires have already devastated Brazil’s Pantanal and local people worry they may lose the battle to save them

Perched atop blackened trees, howler monkeys survey the ashes around them. A flock of rheas treads, disoriented, in search of water. The skeletons of alligators lie lifeless and charred.

The Pantanal, the world’s largest wetland and one of the most biodiverse places on Earth, is on fire. Huge stretches of land resemble the aftermath of a battle, with thick green shrubbery now a carpet of white ash, and chunks of debris falling from the sky.

It’s a hot topic for scientists all over the world

• See more of Fiona Katauskas’s cartoons here

Man, 53, and woman, 74, killed by fallen trees and third person drowns amid howling winds and torrential rain

Tropical Storm Beryl made landfall in south-east Texas on Monday with howling winds and torrential rains, causing the deaths of at least three people, closing oil ports, and knocking out power to more than 2.5 million homes and businesses.

Before making landfall in Texas, the storm had already carved a path through the Caribbean as a category 5 hurricane, where it killed 11 people. It continued on to Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula as a category 2, temporarily dropped in intensity to a tropical storm but again strengthened to a hurricane over the weekend.

More than 146 million Americans under extreme heat alerts as dangerous weather fuels outbreak of new wildfires

A fierce heatwave has shattered temperature records across the US west and has been tied to at least four deaths in Oregon, with more heat on the way as dangerous weather fueled the outbreak of new wildfires.

Oregon faced triple-digit temperatures and saw several records toppled over the weekend, including in Salem, where on Sunday it hit 103F (39.4C), topping the 99F (37.2C) mark set in 1960. Authorities in Multnomah county – home to Portland, where temperatures broke daily records over the weekend – said they were investigating four suspected deaths tied to the heatwave.

Laura Davy, who travelled from Tasmania to take part in a protest at a coal terminal, will appeal prison sentence

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A 21-year-old woman who secured herself to a piece of machinery during a climate protest at a Newcastle coal terminal has been sentenced to three months in prison.

The climate protest, which is now in its 14th day and has involved daily actions, was organised by Blockade Australia to call for a change to the economic and political system to achieve meaningful climate action.

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Gardens could be part of the solution to the climate and biodiversity crisis. But what are we doing? Disappearing them beneath plastic and paving. By Kate Bradbury

Copernicus Climate Change Service says results a ‘large and continuing shift’ in the climate

The world has baked for 12 consecutive months in temperatures 1.5C (2.7F) greater than their average before the fossil fuel era, new data shows.

Temperatures between July 2023 and June 2024 were the highest on record, scientists found, creating a year-long stretch in which the Earth was 1.64C hotter than in preindustrial times.

Ruling, based on constitutional rights for natural features like Quito’s Machángara River, appealed by government

A ruling described by activists as “historic,” a court in Ecuador has ruled that pollution has violated the rights of a river that runs through the country’s capital, Quito.

The city government appealed the ruling, which is based on an article of Ecuador’s constitution that recognizes the rights of natural features like the Machángara River.

Neighbours to Kingaroy renewable energy project say vouchers for pub meals and a massage only compensation given for construction noise

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Properties like Karen Mansbridge’s usually sell within 30 days but her home has been on the market for eight months. The two-hectare hobby farm in the South Burnett region, 160km north-west of Brisbane, was receiving so few inquiries the real estate agent decided to remove the address from the listing.

Interest picked up – until buyers were reluctantly given the address. “They’d fly over it on Google Maps and go ‘nup’,” her real estate agent says.

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NSW government condemns ‘reckless’ actions in Hunter region as more than 200 rail services cancelled and 26 people arrested since 25 June

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It was right on sunrise when Ian Fox, 67, began dangling above a busy railway on a cold Newcastle morning.

The South Australian hadn’t been in the Hunter for long before he suspended himself above the train lines on 25 June. As he hung there, a sign was unfurled below him that said: “Survival depends on non-compliance.”

Temperatures could crest 100F (38C) in many regions after breaking records and sparking dozens of wildfires

A long-running heatwave that has already broken records, sparked dozens of wildfires and left about 130 million people under a high temperature threat is about to intensify enough that the National Weather Service has deemed it “potentially historic”.

The NWS on Saturday reported some type of extreme heat or advisory for nearly 133 million people across the nation – mostly in western states where the triple-digit heat, with temperatures 15 to 30 degrees fahrenheit higher than average, is expected to last into next week.

Challenges include two wars and global inertia on the climate crisis as hard-right populists from France to the US flex their muscles

• David Lammy: ‘Britain has to start reconnecting with a dangerous, divided world’

More than two years after Russia invaded Ukraine, the conflict drags on. Ukrainian forces are depleted and they need foreign weapons. Support for Ukraine crosses most party lines in Europe, but if Donald Trump wins the US election and cuts or limits the flow of arms, Europe may struggle to fill the gap. Lammy will want to shore up public support, bolster European collaboration, and map out what resources the continent can collectively offer Ukraine if the US steps back.

The city just had its hottest June on record, with 175 possible heat deaths so far this year – an 84% increase

Heat-related deaths in the hottest major US city have almost doubled compared with the same period last year, after Phoenix experienced its warmest ever June on record.

The number of possible heat deaths reported by the Maricopa county medical examiner was 175 as of 29 June – a staggering 84% increase over the same period last year.